Lucy Brazier OBE

Author of 'The Modern-Day Assistant: Build Your Potential and Boost Your Influence'. Founder of Executive Support Media. Voice of the administrative profession

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

We keep telling young people they need experience before we will employ them.

But experience has to come from somewhere.

I started work as a receptionist at a local newspaper. I was far from “work-ready”. The workplace taught me how to work.

Now AI is beginning to absorb some of the entry-level work through which people have traditionally learned how organisations function, while employers increasingly want candidates who can contribute from day one.

That has left me wondering about something much bigger than AI.

When did employers stop accepting responsibility for creating experienced employees?

I’ve followed that question across the UK, US and the wider global workforce in this week’s column, and I think we may be storing up a problem that won’t become obvious for years.

https://t.co/JO8i3LG8BV

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

And we're off! First up - @shelleyfishel and a fantastic session - From Digital Filing to Organisational Memory: How Assistants Can Improve Information Quality, AI Readiness and Digital Trust. Administrative Professionals have been responsible for knowledge management and institutional memory for the longest time. Shelley is explaining why with AI, filing has stopped being a background task and becomes critical to how an organisation functions. #ESTECH2026 #Informationquality

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

3 minutes to #ESTech2026 and the excitement is growing!

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

IT’S TOMORROW!

More than 300 administrative professionals from around the world are joining us for ES Tech 2026, and we cannot wait to welcome them.

Over two days, 20 exceptional speakers will help us make sense of what is happening in technology right now. Not just AI, but the tools, systems, workflows, risks and new capabilities that are changing how administrative professionals work.

Technology is moving too quickly to rely on what you learnt last year, or even six months ago. ES Tech is your opportunity to step away from the noise, hear from people who understand both the technology and this profession, and decide what deserves your attention.

And if you cannot watch everything live, you will have access to every session for 30 days.

If you have been meaning to book, this really is your last chance.

We start tomorrow, 10 September.

Join us here https://t.co/KEz1VD5uii

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

“I think we should have a meeting about that. Could you pull the team together?”

Of course.

What people think that means:

Send a calendar invitation.

What it actually means:

1. Work out who “the team” is.
2. Discover that nobody agrees on who needs to be there.
3. Dig deeper into what “that” actually refers to.
4. Establish what decision the meeting is supposed to produce.
5. Ask for agenda items.
6. Chase the agenda items.
7. Turn six vague sentences into an agenda with a purpose.
8. Find the only available hour in twelve calendars across three time zones.
9. Move it because someone essential cannot attend after all.
10. Find a room, a Teams link, or both, because nobody knows whether they are working from home that day.
11. Gather the papers that everyone assumed somebody else was preparing.
12. Brief the executive on the history behind the issue they raised in passing.
13. Remind attendees why they have been invited.
14. Run the meeting from behind the scenes while taking notes, managing time and locating the document somebody definitely sent.
15. Notice that the meeting has drifted onto an entirely different subject and steer it back without appearing to steer it back.
16. Translate “somebody should look into that” into an actual name, action and deadline.
17. Schedule the follow-up meeting before everyone disappears back into their impossible calendars.
18. Answer three messages asking what was decided from people who attended the meeting.
19. Circulate the actions, identify the owners and begin chasing the work the meeting was held to agree.
20. Start work on the actions because several of them somehow belong to you now.

All from one casual sentence uttered while walking between two other meetings.🤣

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

One week from today, more than 300 administrative professionals from around the world will come together for ES Tech 2026.

Explore the latest in:

• AI
• Microsoft 365
• Automation
• Digital workflows
• And much more

Learn from 20+ experts across 24 hours of practical, inspiring content—with 30 days of replay access included.

10–11 September | Online

There’s still time to join us 👇
https://t.co/KEz1VD5uii

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

Incredibly, we are already taking bookings for 2027.

April will take me back to the United States. July and August will include a tour of Australia, a visit to New Zealand and a couple of stops in Asia. There will be plenty happening in the UK and Switzerland throughout the year, a smattering of other European dates, and we are also trying to tie down a tour across several African countries.

The work itself takes many different forms.

Sometimes it is a keynote for hundreds (or occasionally thousands) of people. Sometimes it is a private session with an administrative function that wants to define its value more clearly. Sometimes it is a conversation with senior leaders who know the work has changed, but have not yet changed the structures around it.

Once those routes begin to be put in place, it becomes much easier to add company events, association conferences, internal network sessions and training while I am already in the region.

So, if you have ever thought about bringing me into your organisation or your part of the world, this may be the moment to start the conversation. If I am already going to be nearby, we may be able to make it work.

We will be adding all sorts of events and training dates for 2027 to the website this week.

I am enormously excited to be properly back out on the road. Watch this space. There is a great deal more to come.

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

Your $100 Summer School voucher expires at midnight tonight.

Use it towards ES Tech, ACEA, AI training, project management, ES Thrive or The Modern-Day Assistant.

Not joined Summer School? Enrol free today, claim your voucher and spend it before midnight.

How will you spend yours?

https://t.co/5ED5TZytC1

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

Assistants are paying for their own training, using annual leave to attend it and being told how “lucky” they are when funding is approved.

Meanwhile, employers say they cannot find the skills they need.

This has to change.

Read my new article ↓

https://t.co/Dtilu4kZyh

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

We have spent three years teaching people how to use AI. The next competitive advantage will belong to the people who understand how work, information and decisions actually flow through an organisation. https://t.co/0N4UIGOQ7H

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

The administrative profession has a problem.

When HR, journalists, recruiters and AI all rely on occupational data that no longer reflects the work people are actually doing, everyone makes poorer decisions.

My latest Substack: https://t.co/m2GN5xF5sX

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

@British_Airways Thank you! I totally understand the issues with heat but it wouldn’t be so stressful if someone told us what is going on rather than leaving us all just waiting around, wondering what the heck is going on. Communication is everything!!!

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

@British_Airways Been waiting over an hour at Heathrow T5 for bags from flight 1461 from Edinburgh. Got to get to Gatwick from here to go home to Spain tomorrow. Are they here at Heathrow or still in Edinburgh. It’s saying awaiting bags. And other people from other flights are queuing to fill in white forms because their luggage didn’t make it.

[Abigail Barnes || Time Management Expert @sbdtraining]

Who's attending ES Global this week? Come and say hi I'll be there on Thursday 11 June at 10am

@lucybrazier
#esglobal2026

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

The world’s biggest workplace report just made the case for assistants.

https://t.co/LfnQIFPJHk

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

The real AI divide isn’t technical capability. It’s operational capability.
New piece → https://t.co/zLgXhSEODO

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

Who else just sang Happy Birthday to Sir David Attenborough along with those in the Royal Albert Hall. And then we gave him a standing ovation. #veryemotional #sirdavidattenborough

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

What do you wish your CEO actually understood about your role?

I am interviewing Douglas Conant for ES Global next month. As CEO of Campbell Soup, he was rated one of the top 50 CEOs in the world.

He is one of the rare executives who has spoken openly and honestly about what his assistant makes possible.

I want to put your questions to him directly.

I have my questions. But I want yours.

What do you want to ask your CEO? What would change everything if a CEO like Doug Conant said it out loud, on a stage, in front of 500 administrative professionals?

Tell me in the comments. I am listening.

ES Global. 11-12 June.

[Lucy Brazier OBE @lucybrazier]

Deloitte. $40 billion revenue. Just halved parental leave for the people who keep the place running.
That’s not a management failure. That’s what happens when your workforce architecture misclassifies operational infrastructure as overhead.
The workforce this affects is 98% female. The benefits they cut are the ones that make it possible to have a career and have a child. That’s not a coincidence.
I wrote the full piece on Substack. Read it here.
https://t.co/Isplcoz90F